Posted By Afro-Awesome Guest contributor
On Feb 24, 2015
By Annonymous
You have not stopped taking my breath away.
From the very first time I saw you I experienced that exquisite sensation of my lungs filling with air and catching just before a huge gush of oxygen exploded out of me and everything about the world seemed…
perfect.
You have not stopped being magical.
Your kindness and patience and wide open welcoming arms have carried me gentle into some of the most tremendous healing I have ever undergone.
You have undone every lesson I’d internalized about my unworth and insignificance. In your gaze my insecurity unravels leaving in its wake a sweet compassion directed at the parts of me I have always been most self-conscious about.
You inspire me to want to be a better person, the best person I can authentically be.
And, to be honest…at first I loved you carefully.
I created my own carpet of eggshells to walk over around you because I was so afraid of the devastation that was sure to come after a love that had come so fast, so much, so sweet.
I had to remind myself in the precious moments I got to spend in your arms that your embrace was real, your scent and heart beat against my cheek, your breathing happening beautifully in time with my own, all of it was real.
You are like a dream.
I was convinced I’d imagined you -in a crazed state of loneliness and having virtually no access to other brown queers in real time and in person- seeing you for the first time in such an inauspicious environment felt like a cruel hallucination.
Cruel but captivating.
You seemed no less surreal up close, the dreamiest big brown eyes set in a stunningly crafted brown face. You were too beautiful for words, too beautiful for poetry. And moreover…
You looked at me like maybe I am magic.
That was a prerequisite of mine.
While I bargained with the universe for true love. For meaningful, breathtaking, gorgeous, deep love, however brief. I wanted to take a lover, as Frida had instructed, who looked at me like maybe I was magic. And who believed that I actually was.
No maybes.
And it isn’t so hard to believe that I may possess something supernatural when I think of how something about me attracted you to me. Or how when we are together a tangible shift in the energy around us occurs, makes others take note of our presence and closeness, strangers and friends alike wondering what strange phenomenon is in their midst.
We are magic together.
And not everyone may appreciate or revel in that. That is okay.
Some day, we’ll be sitting on that porch in a sweet quiet little town, gazing at the young playing gleefully in the street, at the middle aged gossiping about that strange old couple that never stop smiling at each other and holding hands.
Some day, we’ll kiss the tattoos we were finally brave enough to cover our bodies with, caress each other’s graying hair, share scented baths to sooth our aching ageing loved up bones.
And after all the drama.After all the homophobia and queerphobia and transphobia and misunderstanding and intolerance and shattering of familial trust and ginger mending of too much pain acknowledged too late.
After all of the partying and travelling, the wild sex and fighting, the marrying and changing of last names.
After our baby has gone on to marry and have babies of their own, or gone on to choose a life of rich friendship and even wealthier fleeting love affairs and travel…
All we’ll have left is each other, and baby, your gorgeous face, at 70, at 80, at 103 there for me to gaze at and kiss?
Would make it all worth it.
Submit your writing, photos or anything else to HOLAA! email: holaafricaonline@gmail.com
*leave a comment on the post, you can write it under a different name and your email will not be published.*